74 replies to this topic

[WildeHilde]

Matches are starting in less than 24 hours.

Avoid time schedule confusion!

Also Câra, the Paladin from the Yaspresents team was sick last night. We hope can start. One of the starcraft players ate Sushi at the wrong location and is know in the hospital.

[WildeHilde]

As everyone is testing tech I had two hours on my own and explored Shanghai on my own.


Day 2 photos

Stumbled into an area with a lot of ateliers of Chinese artists. One of them painted me.

[Colard]

WildeHilde, on 16 November 2012 - 04:20 AM, said:

Also Câra, the Paladin from the Yaspresents team was sick last night.

Noooo

[saffie]

Colard, on 16 November 2012 - 07:43 AM, said:

Le Noooo

FTFY

[WildeHilde]

New photos. Reckful arrived, press dinner. Now need to sleep, tomorrow will be a long day.

[WildeHilde]

European Community Manager Sam Dempsey aka Nakatoir just saved my trip with a tweet reminding me of my bag, which I forgot in the massage area earlier. Passport, credit card, money, Diziet's camera and my notebook were all still in the bag. Anyone claiming CMs aren't helping is a blatant liar!

This is the tweet: https://twitter.com/...462668857982976

Now finally going to sleep...

[WildeHilde]

Betted against Reckful that Zunniyaki, Another and Câra will win.

Also photos coming in constantly: https://www.facebook...x/photos_stream

[WildeHilde]

STREAM LINK

[WildeHilde]

My VPN isn't working since 5 minutes. Can't upload photos.

[WildeHilde]

Câra from Yaspresents forgot his WTF folder. I could help him by getting some scripts from Khuna to him on an USB stick. Hope they'll continue to win. They had a rough start. Another told me "I'm not worried about the enemies, I'm worried about my team-mates". He seemed confident, but seeing them play the first two rounds against The Old Boys made me realize they were shaken up pretty badly after losing to LG.IM (Korean MLS). Hope they recovered.

Snutz, Kollektiv and Venruki seemed dominant, when I saw them against Just trying to be honest, did not see other matches by them.

The Chinese are cheering for the Old Boys, the stage is crowded, too early too call dramas, no one is out, yet..

[WildeHilde]

Time for opinions! This time not the frontpage, so less whining probably.

WoW players are popstars in China

It's so f***ing different. When you walk with Reckful through the hotel lobby or the BWC Pavillion you can expect that every few yards someone will ask him for a photo, a signature or even a hug. When players leave the stage the winners are crowded. No places to sit if you come late, left and right people standing, taking photos and security guards having a hard time keeping the area around the stage clear. And they are cheering. Not some lame clapping, it's more like a concert, it's emotional and even though most viewers don't understand a lot about the game the get excited.

There is nothing comparable in WoW with what happened today and will be surpased tomorrow. No title, no tournament up until now came anywhere as close, not even during the best WoW times in the West during WotLK. We live in an insane hotel, players get massaged, free rides, lovely food and everyone is treated like it's show business. It's not some nerd stuff, this is what many people dream of secretly. Even for the teams struggeling it's probably one of the most amazing experiences of their lives.

It was odd when walking through the hype to read AJ rants, they felt so disconnected from what was happening there. Question is if this hype from Korea for SC:BW and China for WoW and LoL will swap over to the West, if players are actually becoming stars and be sponsored by real companies, not just the usual IT suppliers aiming for nerds. I think the pictures from Shanghai will start to convince companies to give E-Sports a try. Tournaments will get better as people get more experienced and rumours about huge investments are whispered through the PvP scene.

The ladders just don't matter if you look at tournaments. The ladders don't bring this emotion. I remember players saying BG9 or it doesn't matter. It's time to say tournaments or it doesn't matter.

Quality
The current tournaments still lack quality. Be it the current one in Shanghai with long stream breaks, a UI that is stonge age tech compared to ArenaLive or the moderation. Blizzard stepped up quite a bit compared to the BlizzCon or the regionals and I don't think there are many tournaments that can compete from an entertainment point of view (unsure about the stream, talking about live, haven't watched the stream). Online tournaments are getting bigger. Up until now most tournaments did not focus too much on the players, did not put them in the center of attention.

As sad as many may say that the state of balance is, this game still enjoyable with a crappy UI, balance issues, the everlasting caster-cleaves dominating tournament after tournament. I think soon the money for the good and entertaining players will come from other sources than boosting. The future for WoW looks bright, but maybe the players profiting will be different ones. New faces, good looking with a positive attitude and not blight-colored nerds, that exploit ladders and whore themselves with boosting. A community not based on trolls but based on discussion, entertainment and fun. I for one am looking forward to it.

[Geru]

WildeHilde, on 17 November 2012 - 03:38 PM, said:

and not blight-colored nerds, that exploit ladders and whore themselves with boosting.

I did not react on all of your negative comments on boosters, but this one is just over the top. You're generalizing so much that I am seriously questioning your attitude and start thinking that you are one of the biggest retards on AJ.

1. Boosters are not more nerdish than normal WoW players, actually 90% of the people that are in Shanghai atm that you consider as "stars" are boosting actively.
2. Do you even realize that nearly every single booster does not want to rely completely on WoW in their lives? It is simply not possible for everyone to put that much time and effort into earning money with streaming 10h/day, doing youtube videos, etc like Reckful who is doing very well with it. Me and 95% of the ppl I boost with are going to school or university at the same time and just want to earn some free cash while playing WoW. Boosting is the only way to earn money without putting too much time into this shit game.
3. You won't see nonboosters in tournaments because the people that will dominate in tournaments are always gonna boost because they are the only people that get the high €/h boosts and they are the only people that are good enough to do them fast. Another is the biggest booster in entire EU and he was dominating last 2 regionals, the only reason Skenz/Khuna/Flubbah (who boost 24/7 aswell) didnt qualify over Pwny/Boetar/Blukstack (who boost sometimes aswell) is because of bad brackets and comp, it will happen very rarely that only average teams like this go to top 2. Every big tournament name in WoW in the past was boosting (Enigmz, Fabio, Another, Inflame,  Xandyn, Hydra, not sure about US but I am pretty sure they are boosting alot aswell).

Just my 2 cents, you are really pissing me (and even people that do not boost) off with all of your insults, but I guess that is what you intend with it. Just keep it to yourself.

Edited by Geru, 17 November 2012 - 05:51 PM.

[Superkåre]

You seem very passionate about boosting. Do you enjoy making this game worse?

[Florenz]

yah , great post up to the part geru made a response to ...that was a bit over the top..

[phishy]

WildeHilde, on 17 November 2012 - 03:38 PM, said:

As sad as many may say that the state of balance is, this game still enjoyable with a crappy UI, balance issues, the everlasting caster-cleaves dominating tournament after tournament. I think soon the money for the good and entertaining players will come from other sources than boosting. The future for WoW looks bright, but maybe the players profiting will be different ones. New faces, good looking with a positive attitude and not blight-colored nerds, that exploit ladders and whore themselves with boosting. A community not based on trolls but based on discussion, entertainment and fun. I for one am looking forward to it.

Great post and insight on the event, except I don't get where you are going with this.

I'd have to disagree with wow's future looking bright. It's cool and all that WoW players are rock stars over there, at least at the event, but that has nothing to do with the state of the actual game. Ignoring the class/spec imbalance, these games are just a constant waiting around for cooldowns to be popped for something to happen.

[droolingmoron]

dude, hilde, i saw a picture of you. i don't understand why you have to insult other people when you're looking like a "blight-colored-nerd" yourself. dyel????    besides i'm 100% sure boosting doesn't destroy the pvp scene of this game, there's boosting going on in other successful games aswell (think LoL). and i'm also not so sure how somebody that plays computer games professionally and has to train multiple hours every freaking day (ocelote, oddone, reckful or pros of other games - they are all pasty and skinny looking) shouldn't look like a nerd, because that's exactly what they are - nerds, which is not a negative thing per se.

[Yemina]

Bashing the people you're working with :-) Isn't it ironic.

[Synkz]

more pics from shanghai!

[Nisslol]

Quote

New faces, good looking with a positive attitude and not blight-colored nerds, that exploit ladders and whore themselves with boosting

What, like this guy?

Oh wait that's you. Stop provoking, hypocrite.

[Hyrmine]

I don't think he should be insulting anyone as Content Editor.